Joel Cohen, Owner of Tapped, Talks Small Business

Joel's experience establishing a restaurant on Moscow's Main Street and the struggles encountered in Lewiston are an incredible example of growing small businesses in rural areas. His journey, littered with lessons of perseverance and economic acumen, is a testament to the hard work and strategic thinking required to not just survive, but thrive in the hospitality world.

Want to ask questions? Find Joel on LinkedIn.
Keep current on Tapped hours, events, and specials on their website! 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the Kestrel Country Podcast, where we
discuss the people, places andevents all around Kestrel
Country.
So, joel, I like to start offwith um, kind of just people's

(00:42):
background, you know, for getinto how, what, what got you to
Moscow.
It's a podcast about Moscow,but where'd you grow up, kind of
what brought you to Moscow, andthen we can talk about some of
what you're doing here now.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Okay, I'll talk.
I'm sure you can edit it out ifit gets too, too lengthy.
But you know I was born inPhoenix and so I lived there
until I was 11.
That's where most all of my mymom's side of the family which
is most of my extended family,because my dad only has one
sister um, but even my dad'sparents lived there.
So I was born in phoenix, Ilived there until I was 11.
I moved to the seattle area, um, that's where I graduated from

(01:22):
high school in that area, in thebothwell k, kirkland area, and
then I wasted about a year and ahalf of my life after that and
then I joined the Marine Corpsbecause I wasn't doing well at
school I mean, I almost didn'tpass volleyball, and so I was
like this is probably not theright place for me.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
And I've played volleyball.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
You're not terrible yeah so thanks, that seems it
was mostly an attendance issue,gotcha, so you were in school
though I, yeah, I did twotrimesters at shoreline
community college, okay, um, Ihad tried to join the marine
corps, actually like I think inmy senior year, but I had flat
feet and so and I admitted tothat because I didn't know it

(02:04):
would disqualify me, and theydisqualified me.
So I went back in my senioryear, but I had flat feet and so
and I admitted to that cause Ididn't know it would disqualify
me, and they disqualified me.
So I went back in like a yearlater and told them I did not
have flat feet.
When they asked about it, um,and I guess they didn't, they
didn't notice.
When I went to the medical, Imean they commented they're like
your feet are kind of flat andthey signed off on it.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Um so did you have his like family in the military
in the past?
Was something you kind?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
of always wanted to do.
Um, mom and my grandparentswere in world war ii.
Um, my, I had a couple unclesby, uh, by marriage.
Well, one uncle by marriage andone that's sort of like a weird
family connection.
Anyway, they, they were inVietnam, but no, not a lot.
Again, most of my mom's sideare sisters, you know.

(02:51):
And then my dad has one sisterand he was not in the military
himself.
So not a ton.
Yeah, I think it was alwayssomething that was kind of
interesting to me.
It wasn't as though it grew upwith my heart set on it, but it
was always something that waskind of interesting to me.
It wasn't as though it grew upwith my heart set on it, but I,
it was always something that Ithought might be interesting to
do, the military in general.
So I, I went in because Ithought I actually might make a

(03:13):
career out of it.
I thought like I don't want togo to school, obviously I'm not
having, I'm not enjoying this, Idon't want to do it.
So I, I thought being in themilitary could be a good career.
So anyway, I did four years inthe Marine Corps.
I was in Camp Pendleton inSouthern California and then
briefly deployed after 9-11,came back and basically got out

(03:36):
right away, and then I movedback to Phoenix.
My parents and my brother hadall moved back to Phoenix from
Seattle while I was in theMarine Corps, so basically
everybody was there.
But uh, I really didn't likePhoenix at all as I lived there
as an adult.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
And you didn't like the Marine Corps.
Like how'd you figure outpretty quick as like, yeah, this
is not the career for me.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
I did.
Yeah, um, as an institutionlike the Marine Corps and there
are some Marines that I I, ofcourse, but in general, the
quality of the person and thekind of the I don't know what
the right word is, but sort ofthe I guess the honor that I

(04:19):
thought would be there wasn'treally there, it was just kind
of skeezy a lot of times, wasn'treally there, it was just kind
of skeezy a lot of times.
And, um, they talk a lot aboutleadership.
Um, but, like a lot of thepeople that were leaders thought
leadership meant screaming andcussing at you.
You know, I was like, if youwant me to take out the garbage,
just ask me to take out thegarbage, I'll take it out.
You know, you don't have toberate me and cuss at me to get

(04:40):
me to take out the garbage.
If you ask me and I don't do it, I okay, but we're not there
yet, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Just so, there was just that kind of a.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
thing um, uh, that I just I didn't, I guess.
And then I, by the time I gotout I was done.
But if I look back I could haveprobably made a but if I'd

(05:13):
maybe pursued like an officerroute or I just even had a
different mindset myself.
I got kind of disenfranchisedand I had a bad attitude about
it, you know, for the most likethe last three years I was in.
So it could have been better.
I made it sort of worse formyself than it needed to be
because of my attitude.
But yeah, I knew pretty quick Iwasn't going to do more than
four years.
I did tell you know, when youget close to getting out,
somebody comes and talks to youabout reenlisting and I told
this gunnery sergeant that Iwould stay in if they made me a

(05:33):
colonel.
And they didn't do it.
They said yeah.
So I was thinking I'd be on areal early track to general Did
they think about it.
He thought about it.
Yeah, long and hard.
Your life could have been verydifferent, yeah, so, uh, yeah,
got out, moved back to phoenixand started going to college,
and by that time I was much moremotivated to go to college, um,

(05:57):
and that's what.
And during that time is when Ibecame a Christian, which was
January of 2004, and I got outin August of 2002.
And so I was looking to get outof Phoenix in general because I
didn't like it, and I waslooking to get back to a place

(06:17):
out of seasons and I was, atthat time, looking for a place
that had some kind of Christiancommunity I could be a part of,
because, you know, I was goingto church in Phoenix with my mom
, but it was a giant church and,um, I mean, I didn't know
anything about theology at thetime, but it was Calvinist and
sort of theology, but it was avery um, modern, um, church

(06:39):
service, you know, uh, the musicwas all very modern and all
that.
So I didn't know any of that, Ijust was there.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
And.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
I was 25 and, you know, kind of too old for the
youth group.
I did the youth group but therewere, you know, 18 to 22,.
Most of them they were nice tome.
But I didn't make any friends.
Nobody invited me.
So I didn't really have anycommunity, a Christian community
.
And my aunt knew I was lookingto move and I was thinking about
moving to the Santa Cruz areawhere my sister lives and at the

(07:10):
time my aunt lived there too.
This is the aunt that sort ofled me to becoming a Christian
I'm talking about here.
She said you should move toMoscow and think about going to
New St Andrews College.
I've never heard of either,right, although after she heard
I became a Christian.
I got this package in the mailwhen I opened it and it was

(07:30):
Reforming Marriage by DougWilson.
She had just sent that to mewhen she heard I became a
Christian.
So I read that and again, I'dnever heard of Doug Wilson or
anything.
But I mean I read it and it'sgot all the Bible verses in it.
I'm reading it, I'm reading theBible.
I'm like, yeah, that makessense.
So somehow she was aware ofMoscow and Credenda Agenda, new

(07:53):
St Andrews, doug Wilson, I guessthat she had sent Brendan
O'Donnell this direction wayback in the day.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
So anyway, she said to you know, I should move here,
I'd probably like it, and so Ijust kind of picked up and moved
and yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
Idaho's got four seasons.
Yeah, yeah, but you didn't goto New San Jose College, did you
?

Speaker 2 (08:18):
No, I applied, I got in, but I didn't have any money
to go there and so I thought,okay, well, I'll work for a bit,
save up some money.
I was doing that and then Ithought, well, I'm kind of just
working and sort of idle, I'lltry and finish my degree because
I got why not right?
So I, I finished, I ended upfinishing my undergrad degree
and I don't know, I never, never, find my wedding my way to new

(08:40):
st andrews.
So what was your?
What were you studying?
I was getting a bachelor ofscience in business
administration with an emphasis,emphasis, in finance.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
So was that a?
Was that kind of a post postMarine Corps thing of like?
Were you always good at math?
Were you attracted toentrepreneurship?
Like what made you go down thatfinance route?

Speaker 2 (09:03):
I'm good at math.
I'm good at algebraic math ornot.
Calculus.
I did terrible on calculusbecause that to me seemed more
like almost like a language.
But you know, if it comes tojust solving math multiplication
, arithmetic and algebraic kindof stuff I'm good at that.
I've always known that.

(09:25):
But basically when I was inArizona going to community
college and, by the way, youasked, did I start?
No, I started while I was in theMarine Corps and so I started
doing correspondence classeswith this college called Thomas
Edison State College there inNew Jersey and they kind of
specialized in this and they hada heavy military, you know,

(09:49):
student base.
And they offer great pricing andall this stuff.
So when I moved here, Icontinued it with them.
So, but finance, because theymade me choose something and I
didn't know what I wanted to doand I, frankly, still don't and
so I just chose finance.
It sounded like it could beinteresting.
Again, numbers and math arekind of a thing that I know is

(10:13):
good at, so that's kind of how Ilanded on that just because I
had to choose something and Ididn't know what else to choose.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, so you got your degree in finance, met your
wife here.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yep, yep Met her here in 2000.
We met in 2006 and got marriedin 07.
It was a good year to getmarried, it was.
Yeah, yes, you and I, andChristine and Catherine spent a
lot of time together that's truethat summer of 06.
Yep, I don't know if youremember that, but I sure do.
Yeah, a lot of boating, a lotof soccer and tennis, neither of

(10:45):
which I actually enjoy butChristine was there.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
But hey, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
So you got married in 07.
Uh-huh, and what did you doright after that?
You were doing accounting.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
No, so I worked for Keith Daimler and I was his loan
processor, but that was before.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
He is an accountant now, but that was before he was
in accounting Yep.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Okay.
So because what I had?
After I got out of the MarineCorps and lived in Phoenix, I
worked for Wells Fargo as a loanprocessor for about a year.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, but I only did it for a year and then I quit.
So I had applied for apromotion at Wells Fargo and
then they brought me intointerview me for that position
for loan processor two orwhatever it was.
But when they started theinterview I was like look, I

(11:36):
just quit, I don't want to dothis anymore.
So I'm like all right, I neverhad a job interview or promotion
interview like that before.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
You didn't ask to become colonel in order to stay,
or anything.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
No, no, I didn't see that.
They only gave me a 1% raiseand I was kind of unhappy about
that.
I think that played into mydecision to leave.
So anyway, point being, I haddone some loan processing before

(12:11):
.
So I met Keith like my firsttwo weeks here and he said he
might be looking to hire a loanprocessor, and eventually he
offered me the job, and so I didthat for about two years, I
think.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Okay, and that was like 2007, 2008?
.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
That was 05 to 07.
Okay, so yeah, right before thecrash yeah, so, um, during that,
I graduated with my degree in07 and there's no real jobs here
for a finance degree from someno name college out of new
jersey, right?
So you could sell insurance orbe a personal banker, and I
didn't want to do either ofthose.

(12:45):
So I had taken an accountingclass, basic accounting, while I
was getting my finance degreeand thought it was kind of
interesting, and so I decidedagain.
I didn't know what else to do,but I needed to do something.
So I'll become a CPA, right?
So went back to school for amaster's in accounting.
Then I started working forChristchurch as, like their

(13:06):
finance person, and I did thatfor about three years While you
were getting your master's inaccounting.
And that's when the recessionhappened and it took me.
I graduated in May of 09, butit took me until January of 11
to get a job for an accountingfirm, and that was Moss Adams
over in Eugene.

(13:26):
And, yes, during that time,keith had gone back to school
and got his master's degree inaccounting and got a job at Moss
Adams up in Spokane.
So, yeah, then we moved toEugene, was there for almost
three years and came back.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, and Moss Adams is a big, big firm right.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, a big West Coast firm, okay, um, one of the
one of the larger west coast?
They're not.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
They're not, certainly not one of the big
four, but they're pretty, prettybig firm, yeah, and you were
doing um audits and that kind ofstuff as, and you got your cpa
while working for them, or didyou have your cpa before?

Speaker 2 (14:00):
I.
I passed all the exams on myown while I was waiting to get a
job again, because I was.
I was just like I'll dosomething.
I don't want to be idle, yeah,and I thought it would make me,
you know, more desirable hire.
So, anyway, I did all the exams.
But you can't actually get yourlicense until you work in the
field for a certain amount oftime.
Oh, okay, so I didn't get ituntil I'd been at Moss Adams for

(14:22):
two years.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Okay, so I didn't get it until I'd been at Moss Adams
for two years.
What's that?
I mean it's kind of off track,but what's that like now?
So I mean at that time it tookyou a couple years just to find
a job in accounting.
Do you know what that's likenow?
I mean, is there a shortagethere, like there is a lot of
other places?
I'm told that there is.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
I may be looking for an accounting job soon.
I have a very large debt Igotta pay off, but I gotta get
my CPA license active again, soI have to do a lot of continuing
professional education.
But yeah, I'm told that there'sa demand for accountants,
probably like there's a demandfor everything.
I think it was a thing that alot of baby boomers probably did

(15:05):
more than you're going to findin Gen Z or even millennials.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
That makes sense.
Everybody wants to do computerscience and that kind of thing
now.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, and a lot of those people obviously have left
the workforce.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yeah, it seems similar to attorneys.
I know in that same kind ofpost-recession.
During the recession timeframeit was like there were law
school graduates everywhereworking whatever job, because
there just weren't any law jobs.
Right now it sounds like it'sswung a little bit the other way
.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Oh, really Interesting.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
So yeah, you'd worked , worked in Eugene and then came
back here.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
But what did?

Speaker 1 (15:49):
when did you get?

Speaker 2 (15:49):
into kind of entrepreneurism.
That's the right word.
Yeah Well, I guess while I wasin Eugene I made friends with a
couple of brothers who wanted tostart a brewery, and so they
asked if I would help them sortof be the accountant, finance
person in that, and so I agreedto do that, help them get their
brewery up and running, andthat's Cold Fire Brewery out of

(16:17):
Eugene.
So that was kind of my firstmajor step into entrepreneurship
.
I sold newspaper subscriptionsdoor to door when I was a kid.
I don't know if that goes.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, I think so.
That probably was a window intoyour future, right, yeah?

Speaker 2 (16:28):
And often all I got was pizza afterwards, because
nobody ever bought any.
But the guy did buy his pizzaafterwards.
Yeah Well, that's good yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, I mean, when you're a teenager, working for
pizza is not a bad thing.
No, for pizza is not a badthing, no, yeah.
So other than that, though, itwas your first foray into it
yeah and was that something youalways had interest in?
Or was it like, hey, just amore of out of an opportunity
these guys came to you?
You're like, oh man, this wouldbe interesting yeah, it was
more of an opportunity.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
They came to me, um, and asked if I'd do it and and
is that still going?
It's still going.
Yeah, they're doing really wellworks.
We've expanded.
We've uh opened a secondbrewing location, um, and we got
you know.
We've tripled our productioncapacity.
We have a restaurant beingbuilt.
We've won several medals at uhgreat american beer festival and

(17:19):
uh world world beer cup, sowe're we're doing pretty good,
that's awesome yeah we justsigned with the distributor, and
so there's a chance in thenot-too-distant future they
might be getting their beer outhere.
Wow, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
And that was how long ago.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
We opened in January of 2016.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
Okay, and so Tapped is probably what you're most
known for around here.
Was that when you startedthinking about, or was that kind
of what planted the seed,thinking about doing something
similar here in Moscow?

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Well, it's not similar.
You're not brewing beer, but no,the idea for well, the idea
originally came to me when Ifirst moved here.
Now it wasn't necessarilytapped here Now it wasn't
necessarily tapped.
But when I moved here Irealized or noticed that there,
if you're talking aboutrestaurants at that casual
mid-price point, not likehigher-end restaurants, but at

(18:11):
that mid-price point, casualdining everything seemed to be
catered to college students.
If you can remember back to 05,what was available here?
You mean there was Applebee's.
I don't even know if Applebee'swas here yet I think it was.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
Yeah, in 05.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
It might have been Applebee's, winger's, winger's,
so some chains like that.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
There wasn't.
I mean to be honest at thattime.
There wasn't much period, evenon the higher end.
It was like the Red Doordowntown was about the only
thing other than you know otherthan you know out at the
university.
There just wasn't much here.
Yeah, pizza joints.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Right.
And so you know, even like theAle House.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
Oh, that's right, Ale House was there.
That probably opened aroundthat time.
Ale House, yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
No, ale House has been around since like the 80s,
really.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
I think so have they weren't.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
I don't think they were in that location maybe
people older than older than mehave said oh, you know, I come
back here and my kids are atcollege to visit them and we go
to alehouse because I went therewhen I was in college, okay, so
anyway, I don't remember allthat was here, but what there
wasn't as a place that seemed tocater to cater to post-college
adults.

(19:26):
At the time I didn'tnecessarily have a concept, but
I just thought this is weird.
Everywhere else I've livedthere's plenty of places like
that that aren't just collegekind of dives.
I'm not trying to bag on anyplace, but there wasn't a place
that I thought was whose targetmarket was postgraduate, you
know, adults, post-collegeadults.

(19:46):
So that was something I noticedwhen I first moved here.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
And I thought, man, if somebody could open a
business like that they'dprobably do really well.
And obviously I was not in aposition to do anything like
that.
But after coming back here andso I moved back from Moss Adams
and I was working for a companyin Pullman it's like the head of
their accounting department andkind of realized I didn't, I

(20:11):
realized at that time I don'tthink I want to do accounting
for the rest of my life and wastrying to figure out what else I
would want to do.
I thought I am young enough nowthat if I go out there and try
something else and I fail, I canhave enough time to put things
back together.
So I was kind of talking abouta lot of what we've just talked

(20:34):
about with a friend and he was,so I was kind of telling him
about my idea.
So when I come back from EugeneI still notice there wasn't a
place, like I had mentioned, tocater to post-college adults.
But my idea then had taken moreshape from the craft beer
circle I'd kind of stepped intoin Eugene working, you know, in

(20:59):
Portland in Eugene a lot At thattime particularly it was a big
craft beer boom, so I'd sell taphouses.
It was a big thing and so sortof a concept I thought might
translate well here in terms ofa tap house.
So yeah, coming back fromEugene is kind of where I kind
of, and working in Portland andstuff is where I put the concept

(21:21):
together in my head.
Not that I had come back withthe concept, but when I started
thinking about possibly doing it, that was the concept I thought
of Gotcha.
So a friend of mine was like,yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
You know, I was like all right, I guess Was that in
in Eugene, was it most, I think.
When I went down there andvisited you guys, we we went to
Ninkasi.
You know, you guys, we went toNinkasi.
Were a lot of them, morespecific breweries, or were
there similar things to Taftwhere you have a whole bunch of
different beers and some of both.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah, there's definitely both.
In fact, my original conceptfor Taft was actually even more
casual.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
It was more of a concept that you see quite a bit
in Eugene and Portland.
At least you did 10, 12 yearsago when I was there, but you
didn't have a waiter really.
I mean, there was a couplewaiters that would occasionally
wander around, bust a table.
If you wanted something, youcould ask them, but if you
wanted service right now, you'dgo up to the bar and get
something.
That was kind of my originalidea and we actually opened

(22:21):
trying to implement that modeloriginally at TAPT.
But people here did not acceptthat.
People want service, yeah, andso there's a culture that has to
embrace that.
Yeah, eugene has that culture.
It's like it's not an uncommonthing.
Interesting here it was likewhat's going on?
This is not how we do things,this is crazy right.

(22:42):
So I had to shift meet themarket, what's going on?
This is not how we do things,this is crazy right.
So I had to shift, you know,meet the market where it's at
and give them what was going tokeep them coming back.
So we had to scramble and kindof change the concept and really
look at a full-servicerestaurant.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
So you start a restaurant with no real culinary
experience, no real restaurantexperience, no, I've never
worked in a restaurant in mylife.
But you have.
You have business knowledge andexperience.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
I didn't have to Finance anyway.
Yeah, I have account, you knowaccounting and I've audited
plenty of businesses.
But I mean there's a there's acertain level of business.
That's fairly simple, right.
You need to sell the thing youmake and make more than you
spend you know, yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, well, it's just interesting to me.
It seems like a lot of peopleare the opposite, the other way
around.
Right, they're a chef orwhatever.
They're really into food andcooking.
And I'm not saying you're not,but I'm not, you know.
But then how do you actuallymake that into a business?
You know?
I mean, the same goes even withconstruction.
You see a lot of guys they'rereally skilled carpenters like

(23:54):
great, I'm going to go start abusiness.
I don't want to work for thisother guy.
A lot of times it doesn't workout because they're good at
construction.
They're not necessarily good atrunning a business.
Yeah, so it's just interestingthat, coming at it in a
different way.
So how did you put together theI guess, product side of it for
lack of a better word the foodside of it, not having

(24:15):
experience, not being in thefood business?

Speaker 2 (24:18):
I thought that, again , just the basic idea of, you
know, controlling your costs andyour labor and the cost of the
goods sold, and all that that'sapplicable to any manufacturing
in quotes, manufacturingbusiness right, which is what a

(24:40):
restaurant is, is like ajust-in-time manufacturing
business, right, and so that'sone thing, that sort of of just
it just is what it is.
Now, I don't know anythingabout food.
I don't really like food,though.
I mean, if I didn't have to eat, I probably wouldn't.
I could just take a pill tohave fill my.
You know, get all my nutrients.
I would do that, yeah, um so nota good tagline for a restaurant
, by the way but well, I figuredI would just hire people who

(25:04):
knew that kind of stuff, and so,uh, that's, that was what we
did originally.
And so, um, you know the peoplethat I worked with them and
give them my two cents on things.
But they basically put the menutogether and then, as we went
along, we tweaked it.
Okay, people aren't orderingthis they must not like it.

(25:25):
Let's put something else onright.
It was just a lot of fixing,fixing the original guesses we'd
made.
Um, or you know, hey, we this,this product, people like it and
all that, but we, we don't makevery much money on it and so
it's like it's like all we'relosing money when we sell it,
kind of a thing.
So, um, we have to replace itin order to change it, you know.

(25:47):
So, not being a food person, ithas helped me because I don't
have any sort of attachment toanything on the menu.
Yeah, yeah, either, either it'sa a thing that people like to
buy and we can sell it at theright margin in order to run a
successful business, or it's not.

(26:08):
So, if not selling, well,people don't like it.
Get rid of it.
Put something on that peoplelike I don't care, it wasn't my
creation, I'm not married to it.
If the cost of goods sold istoo high, no problem saying well
, if you want to continueselling this, we need to change
what we put into it and that wasanother thing that I learned in

(26:31):
the restaurant industry is,whenever you make a dish, you're
always going to compromise onsome things.
It's never going to be the idealway you would make it.
If I invited you over fordinner.
They were going to make youdinner.
Maybe at the highest-endrestaurants you can do that, but
not not in, certainly not incasual dining.
So, um, not really caring aboutfood the way that I do, it was

(26:57):
easy for me to sort of approachit that way and sort of insist
on that when other people arelike no, this, this is how it
tastes the best and it's like Iget that, but, um and again just
go with the idea of that.
Um, you know, tap wasn't createdto sell the best food in Moscow
.
Right, that's not what we do.

(27:17):
I don't.
I don't charge enough for that.
You want the best food, you'regoing to pay for it.
And another thing I learned inthe restaurant industry is the.
The quality of the foods youput out there is directly
related to how much it costs tobuy.
I mean, that's, that's thenumber one driving factor in how

(27:38):
good is this product.
Well, how much did it cost tobuy?
You want a really good steak?
It's pretty much going to bebecause it costs $40 a pound to
buy.
You can mess it up cooking it,but that's always going to be
better than the $6 per poundsteak that somebody else went by
, unless you ruin it cooking it.
So those were some interestingthings I learned pretty early on

(27:59):
in terms of running therestaurant.
Yeah, so what year did it start15.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Okay, almost 10 years , yeah, wow.
So that brings up I don't knowwhat the statistic is, but you
always hear it out there, right,like most restaurants fail
within two years, something likethat, yeah, so how did you get
past that?
And was it close?
Like you know, was the firsttwo years as bad as other people

(28:27):
experience.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
Probably not.
Probably wasn't as bad becausewe didn't fail.
So we were.
We had a profit the first year.
It wasn't a ton of money oranything.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
That's outstanding.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yeah, I mean, I think having the church community
here was a huge lifeline rightoriginally, and that's something
we didn't have down in Lewiston.
But it's hard to know how muchthat affects your business until
you maybe have something tocompare it to.
But I think a lot ofrestaurants fail in the first

(29:06):
two years.
One because of their location,which could have been a thing
for us in Lewiston too, and theother one is kind of what you
mentioned earlier.
You have somebody who likes tocook and so they want to do a
restaurant.
But liking to cook and actuallyeven being a good cook is
different than making food in arestaurant.
You know, it's just two totallydifferent things.

(29:28):
So it doesn't matter if youlike to cook or even if you make
really good food doesn't youhave to make it for a profit.
Yeah, you know.
Yeah, um it't.
You have to make it for profit.
Yeah, you know.
Yeah, you have to make a lot ofit at once, and so you're not
hand crafting everybody's.
You know dish.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
So you mentioned location being one of the big
reasons people go out ofbusiness.
How much of is that in a factorfor you guys?
Did you?
Were you super picky in findingthat location?

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Here in Moscow or down in Lewiston.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
In Moscow I was.
Yeah, and what went into thatdecision?
Because I mean, I'll be honest,it seemed like at that time,
from what I remember, most ofthe restaurant scene was further
south, yep, on Main Street,yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, Main Street.
I definitely wanted to be onMain Street.
That was something that me andCaleb Applegate, who was working
with me and partnered with meand helping me get this place
going, that was the thing thatwe really were pretty set on Now
being, yeah, north of 3rdStreet.

(30:30):
You're right there was probablya little bit of a gamble at the
time, and a lot of people tellme I was.
It was a mistake, you know, um,but there was nothing.
There wasn't anything availablesouth of third street, right?
I mean, we'd looked for monthsand months it just wasn't
anything, and that place thatwe're in now.
I don't know if you remember,but it was empty for a long time
.
It was hideous, uh, internallyand from the outside it was, I

(30:55):
think, like the Latah CountyDemocrats had been the last
temporary tenants in that place.
It wasn't until I I don't knowwhy, but I just thought.
You know, if we just guttedthis thing, it could rip off the
front, it could look totallydifferent, it could be whatever
we want it to be.
And this just dawned on me oneday when I was walking by.
So that was how we, you know.

(31:16):
I just thought let's go.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
So your main location decision was downtown yes, just
being on Main Street.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Main Street.
I would not have wanted to gofurther north than probably
Mingles.
It was that first street, butthat Main Street between 6th and
1st was really the area we werelocated.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
Okay, yeah, and what was the?
What was the reason for that?
Just, did you guys do look intofoot traffic, do a lot of
studies on it, or was it justyou know more gut instinct?
Like I think a restaurant needsto be downtown?

Speaker 2 (31:53):
It was mostly gut instinct.
I mean not that it takes awhole lot of um, uh, intuition
to realize that downtown moscowis sort of the heart of the
dining scene, but also just theheart of our city.
And again going to lewiston,it's not like that.
In lewiston their downtownisn't the heart of their city,
it's not even in the heart oftheir city.
You know, it's in the northwestcorner of their city, um, and

(32:17):
it certainly is not the placethat people just go to.
So, uh, but obviously that's howit is in Moscow, that's, you
know, all the successfulrestaurants were on, were on
main street at the time.
So yeah, I mean that was fairlyself-evident.
Um, we didn't do any.
I didn't do any studies oranything like that what were?

Speaker 1 (32:37):
did you have any like super hard lessons?
I mean we haven't really talkedmuch about lewiston yet, but um
, hard lessons those first fewyears that you guys had to learn
that you know big hiccups,anything like that.
Um seemed like you were goingthrough a fair number of I don't
know if chefs you know or youknow the people in charge of
cooking and menu and that kindof stuff.

(32:58):
Did it take a while to kind offind the right fit there?

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yeah, it wasn't until Tyler really wanted to try it
and had been reluctant to sincehe had never worked in a
restaurant either to say like,yeah, you can run the whole
thing he had been working therepreviously.
Yeah, he started as a front ofhouse manager.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
And he had been a bootster and a teacher before
that.
But he wanted to do it.
He asked me and I had not hadsuccess finding the person I
wanted prior to that and Ithought, why not One?
He had been almost two yearsyears by now, so he has almost
two years of experience.
I've got a lot more restaurantexperience by this time too.

(33:42):
Working to figure out it's notjust the cost of goods sold,
it's how do we make the kitchenrun efficiently so that when we
get busy we can get food outquickly.
That was a real challenge upfront.
A lot of that has to do withthe way your menu is set up so
that if 80 of your orders areall have to be cooked on the

(34:05):
flat top and our flat top is,you know, only so big.
I can only cook so much on it.
If I have to service 80 in therestaurant with that, yeah, I'm
going to fall behind.
Interesting, right.
So you have to get menu itemson there that utilize the entire
hotline pretty evenly.
So you know we have fourhamburgers and that's pretty
much all we cook on the flat top.

(34:29):
But the flat top probablyservices 50% of what we actually
sell.
So the menu isn't 50% flat topitems, you know griddle items,
it's, you know 10%, but it doesmake up 50% of our sales roughly
.
Just kind of making up roundnumbers here.
But point being that, yeah, ithas to be.

(34:52):
You have to set it up so thateverything is utilized fairly
evenly, so that you can make themost food you possibly can at
any one time.
And a lot of that was trial anderror, the thought of his trial
and error, but also sort ofcoming to that realization along
the way.
Right, I didn't, I didn't dawnon any, at least on me and on
tyler, until a little while inlike this is a problem.

(35:14):
We're falling behind becauseevery that that station there
has to cook everybody's food.
You find the bottleneck andyeah, and it's, you know it's
only so big.
We only got a four foot, youknow griddle.
So, um, so there's thatcomponent which was an
interesting thing to learn.
Uh, um, again, what kind ofprocedures you have to make the

(35:35):
food be able to be actually hotand on a plate as quick as
possible.
Can we prep ahead of time Allthat kind of stuff?
So, yeah, it's like a logisticsexperiment or it's a logistics
job, a lot of it.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
Yeah, yeah.
So then, when did we can talkabout this in a little bit.
So how early did you decide?
Like you know, this is goingwell.
What if we did it again or ifwe found another spot?

Speaker 2 (36:04):
um, that's probably about three years in.
It was probably 2019.
Yeah, maybe 18 actually couldhave been in 18.
Yes, it was 18.
That would be three years from2015.
I'm good at math, so yeah westarted looking in 18 and we
actually started.
We made our first step towardslewiston in 2018 by attempting

(36:28):
to lease a spot down there andthe current spot.
We ended up putting it in okay.
We ended up buying thatbuilding a year later and then,
um, putting it in, uh after that.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
So so your thought was yeah, things are going well.
We've kind of figured out howthings are running up here, and
tyler was already there at thetime or no?
Yeah, tyler, tyler was at tapfrom day one, so yeah, okay and
running things at that point, atthat point, three years in, um,
and just thought, well, why notget into, why not multiply this
thing?
Yeah, three years in and justthought, well, why not get into,
why not multiply this thing?

Speaker 2 (36:59):
Yeah, and we had looked in several places.
We considered Pullman, weconsidered Coeur d'Alene.
In fact we pursued anopportunity in Coeur d'Alene
that just didn't work out.
But Lewiston is pretty close,so we thought that would be.
But far enough away that wewouldn't just be pulling our own

(37:19):
customers, was that?

Speaker 1 (37:21):
kind of the Pullman decision?
Did you guys know?
Where do you track thatinformation?
Is that through either creditcards or anything like that to
figure out where your customersare coming from, or was it more
just?

Speaker 2 (37:31):
anecdotal.
Yeah, it was pretty anecdotal,but it's also.
It's not that hard to sort ofget a feel for it, right.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
When there's a big wazoo weekend, you guys are busy
, for example, more busy than Uof I weekends.
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
So and frankly I don't love business in
Washington.
The minimum wage laws arepunitive, and so staying in
Idaho was desirable for us.
But yeah, we also had againthis is all anecdotal, but lots
of Lewiston people over theyears.

(38:09):
Just you know you do so well inLewiston and all this stuff.
And of course there's the otherside of everybody's like
Lewiston is just too blue-collar, they don't care about any of
this.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
You hear a lot of both.
You don't really feel liketapped as uppity though.
No, I don't, I don't.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Um.
But there, you know, peoplewould say all they want is is
their Bud Light or their CoorsLight, um and a.
I heard that kind of caricaturea lot and it's like I mean, how
many are like that and how manywould like tap?
Who knows, I don't know.
I don't know how to get thatinformation, but we just decided

(38:47):
it Again.
It's not uppity, it's just pubfood and beer.
So we thought, even if youliked just domestics, we have
light beers, we can carry moredown there if that's what people
want.
But if we're saying, yeah, butwe sell good food, you like good
food?

(39:07):
Right, I mean, you like CoorsLight, you might still like a
nice hamburger that's not frozen.
So anyway, those are sort ofthe the.
Uh, I guess we thought it would.
It was pretty good reversal fit.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah, so it took, I mean, from starting down there
2018 timeframe to when did youopen?

Speaker 2 (39:28):
We opened in 2023.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Okay, so, yeah, that's a long haul, yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
And that was mostly construction related delays and
that kind of thing.
Uh, well, no, we ended upbuying the building about
exactly a year after we signedour first lease to to rent that
spot, even though we neveractually got into it in 18.
So we bought it in 19.
And then we were working withthe bank and they said, hey,
your loan to uh to renovate thespace is ready to sign on Friday

(40:01):
.
And so Friday came and went andon Monday I contacted the bank
and said hey, so we didn't signon Friday, are we going to sign
today, tomorrow?
What's the plan?
The bank manager he called usin and we'd been working with
the bank for probably five orsix months at this point to get
this loan done.
So it was early 2020 now and,um, he's like, hey, so your loan

(40:23):
was declined like three monthsago, and I was like what you
know?
So-and-so said we were going tosign two days ago.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
What do?

Speaker 2 (40:29):
you mean, it was what you know, and he's like I, he
was trying to um, you know hehad to be careful about how he
was saying all this.
He was like I'm sorry, I don'tknow how to tell you what
happened, but I think this guyjust didn't want to tell us we
were declined, I don't know.
I mean, he went so far as tosay we were going to close, not
just string us along Like youhave a closing date.

(40:50):
That's crazy.
It's like surely your cover-upwill blow up at that point,
right, I don't know.
So it was weird.
Anyway, we had to, and then thebank didn't want to actually do
a restaurant loan.
At that time COVID had juststarted and they were just
pulling everything back.
So we had to go find a wholenew bank, do a whole new loan

(41:11):
process, and that took another10 months, 11 months.
And that took another 10 months, 11 months.
So we're a year and a halfafter we bought this building
before we have a loan to go andrenovate it.
And then, uh, yeah, just forcost reasons, we had to
basically self-perform, um, as ageneral contractor.
I mean, I I tried to hire, uh,construction individuals to run

(41:34):
the job.
I wasn't trying to run itmyself but, um, again, didn't
have great success at finding umgreat project managers went
through a few kind of finish itoff myself, um.
So yeah, it took a while andyou know it was very expensive
because all the things wentcrazy.
Yeah, you're right, when westarted yeah, no, kidding, all

(41:56):
that inflation.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
yeah, I mean I had to have been you guys, from what
it seems like.
Anyway, you guys probably gothit by inflation almost worse
than anybody else, right,because you're doing a
construction project which wasinsane inflation and cost of
food, right Inputs went throughthe roof from what we could hear
.
So, yeah, a lot of hurdles, butyou finally got opened and yeah

(42:19):
, so what?
And you guys just recentlyclosed.
So what happened there was?
You mentioned location.
You think that was one of thebiggest factors, just being
downtown, but, like you said,lewiston downtown is different.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
It is there downtown.
It could be really nice if thepeople cared enough to
prioritize it.
And there are some people downthere that do, but they're a
minority.
Majority of people just don'tseem to care.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Well, you know what's interesting?
I'll give you just a littleanecdotal.
So I went down there for lunch,I don't know when.
That was late last yearsometime.
And it's funny because everyonein Moscow loves to talk about
parking problems.
Right Like parking downtown isa nightmare.
Right Like I've never reallyhad a hard time.
I haven't either't either likemaybe I gotta circle the block

(43:10):
right once or twice, or whateveryou know, or you park a block
or two away from tapped and youwalk in, or whatever.
Yeah, for example, for usingtapped as an example, I actually
found parking for lewistontapped quite difficult.
Um, just, and I think some ofit's because of downtown the way
it is, it's much bigger right,and so it was like I couldn't
just circle the block quick.

(43:30):
It's like I had to go all theway down the one way, come back
around.
I eventually parked like backbehind, thought I could cut
through, ended up walking, so itdid seem like parking was a
little bit more of an issue indowntown Lewiston.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
So Lewiston has a huge parking lot, public parking
lot.
That's basically.
You know, you cross the street,you go to the park and you
cross another street and there'sa giant parking lot for like
1,200 cars Like.
I don't know, there's a ton, butnobody will park there and walk

(44:09):
across the block, which iscloser than just going down
there down the street andparking, and easier.
And I mentioned to the city,you know, hey, you should put up
, like a giant light lit up,free public parking sign, you
know, because so I don't thinkthere actually is a parking
problem in downtown Moscow, Imean sorry, downtown Lewiston or
Moscow, for that reason, yeah,For that matter, but there's a
perception that there is andthat's all it takes to make

(44:31):
people not go down there.
Well, it seems like some ofit's like a flow issue right.
So when I was trying to- getthere.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
I didn't really, you know, I was like I'd have to go.
I would have gone the other way, but I didn't really know to go
the other way, or whatever.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah, and that stretch you're talking about,
it's a long stretch where youcan't turn around and that
that's a bummer that is probablythe least desirable um aspect
of trying to park downtown.
If you can't find somethingright there, you do have to go.
It's not that far, it's aquarter mile.
No, it's less than a quartermile, it's probably 250 yards,
right, but it feels like a longways, um, before you can turn

(45:05):
around.
And moscow is nice because youknow every 200 feet you can turn
around and Moscow is nicebecause you know every 200 feet
you can turn around.
So there's a perception atleast of parking problems
downtown in Lewiston.
For sure that plays a role.
You know, I knew of course itwasn't the center of their town
like it is in Moscow downtown,it wasn't like the focal point

(45:27):
of Lewiston.
But the thing about Lewiston isthey don't, they don't have a
place like that.
So if you're going to go out toeat in Lewiston, you're going
to get in your car and you'regoing to drive to a spot and
you're going to go park and goto that place.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
It isn't, it's just they're all over.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
They don't have a center mass of a bunch of
restaurants all downtown or townor or whatever yeah, there
might be more up thing, but like, still it's individual parking
lot, individual place yeah, yeah, and so our thing was well, if
you're gonna get in your car anddrive to a restaurant, you
could just as easily get in yourcar and drive to tapped yeah
you're gonna get in your car anddrive somewhere.
So, um, that was the way youknow.

(46:03):
I mean, that's how I wouldthink about it if I live there
so, and I just think, well, I'ma fairly regular guy so probably
a lot of people think like me.
But there is that perception ofthe parking that, whether it's
true or not, the perception doeskeep people from going downtown
.
So yeah, that plays a role andwe were also wanting to be sort

(46:25):
of on part of a movement torevitalize their downtown.
There was a big movement to dothat, particularly four or five
years ago, and it kind offizzled and it's kind of it's
almost taken a step back.
I don't know Now, probablyprobably not a step back, but
it's it hasn't really goneanywhere.

(46:46):
You know one of the guy thatowns a lot of buildings downtown
anywhere.
You know one of the guy thatowns a lot of buildings downtown
.
He's not done a lot ofconstruction because the
construction prices areunreasonable.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
So he's just like I'm not going to do anything until
the construction prices aren'tstupid.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Yeah, you know so.
He's done very greatly.
He owns a lot of stuff, buthe's just kind of sitting on it,
is that Alexander?

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Yeah, yeah, interesting.
So so you had.
How long were you open downthere?
We were open for um eightmonths Okay.
And is there any feeling ofmaybe we, maybe we didn't give
it long enough?

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Uh, yeah, totally.
I think if we could have madeit for a couple of years we
could have become a anestablished part of the
restaurant scene in lewiston.
But it was just losing so muchmoney and I was the only one
putting money in I was like I'mnot I'm just not gonna do this
anymore.
I can't, I don't want to and Ican't.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
You know yeah how much of that do you think was
geographic?
Um, not say lewiston inparticular, but just being 30
minutes, 35, 40 minutes.
I don't know what was the drivedown there, 35 minutes or
something.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yeah 35.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
Away.
Does that take a toll in termsof what you have?
Do you think if you were thereand could be around it all the
time, that would be different?

Speaker 2 (48:06):
Yeah, it would have been easier on uh, on tyler for
sure.
Um so, yes, that doesn't affectour sales necessarily.
Uh, it might affect, notdirectly.
I should say it wouldn'tdirectly affect our sales but it
could affect things like youknow is management there to

(48:30):
ensure quality of service and,you know, create the kind of
internal culture that is nice tohave like that we have at TAP.
Here I have a lot of serversthat come from other restaurants
and they tell us all the timehere like.
This place is very differentthan any other restaurant I've
worked in.
You know so much better.
You know these other places.

(48:52):
They're all backbiting andthey're catty and drama and all
this stuff and no teamwork.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
You're just looking out for me.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
They find working at TAP very different, and that's
just a cultural thing that hasbeen created over time.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
So a lot of that has to do with some of the people
we've hired right.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
We you know from from Tyler as the manager to the
individuals, you know a lot ofhigh character.
You know NSA Christian people,which again the kind of employee
pool down at Lewiston was verydifferent, so it was not nearly

(49:35):
as easy to create that kind of aculture down there.
But anyway, being a distance,not having to manage there as
much, can lead into those thingswhich can indirectly affect
sales If somebody's not gettingthe guest experience they want.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Yeah.
So, Do you think you'd do itagain in another place, or is it
like you know what?
I think we've got a great thinggoing at Moscow Tapped, and
it's good being in Moscow.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
I would consider it.
I probably would be the one topush it in terms of I wouldn't
want to, I wouldn't spearhead it, but if somebody was like Joel
you know I've run thisrestaurant over here with high
success I really would thinkthis.
You know, tap would do well atsuch and such place.
I'll partner with you.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
I'll run it.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
You know, I can invest as much money like yeah,
I'd consider something like that, but I'm not, at this point in
my life, looking to push anotherone somewhere I you know I
think one up in court lane wouldprobably do well.
I just I'm not in a position todo it right now.
Yeah, yeah and like goingcircling back to where we
started.
I'm not a restaurant lover.
I don't, I don, I don't.

(50:48):
You know, I go out to eat.
I don't really care what myservice is like, unless you call
me names, I don't care you know, I'm just like I don't have the
standard that I go out lookingfor.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
I'm just there to have fun with whoever I'm with
you know.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
And so again, unless my food is pretty abysmal, I
just I don't care, you know.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Um so, yeah, yeah, interesting.
So what else are you up to?
What's next?

Speaker 2 (51:13):
you mentioned accounting, maybe doing some of
that yeah, well, I've got, uh,this building downtown that I'm
trying to get built, and a lotof that will depend on the
construction costs.
Um, but I've been negotiatingwith my neighbor about this
shared wall that we have for along time.
Um, and I'm I've got mypermitted now to to do the work

(51:39):
that their engineer has agreedto, the work that my engineers
provided.
So in hindsight I would havejust said can.
To my neighbor I said you getan engineer and you draw up what
you want me to build toreinforce this wall, Because it
was me drawing stuff, myengineer drawing stuff, sending
it over like yes, and draw Doyou like that?
No, it's like this.
Well, change that.
Okay, what about now?
We'll change that.

(51:59):
It's like why don't you?
Just?
It probably would have beenbetter if we'd done that, but
anyway, I'm trying to get thatbuilding built.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
Yeah, what's the plan for that building?
So?

Speaker 2 (52:13):
that'll be a four-story building that's the
plan and the ground floor willbe commercial and the top three
stories will be apartments andI'm going to Airbnb the second
floor apartments and see howthat goes, okay.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Yeah, Is this kind of your first foreign, uh
residential.
Well, you got some.
That building you own inLewiston has some residential.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
It has, and, and you know I've owned some individual
single family um units in thepast.
Um so, but this would be, thiswould be the biggest commercial
project that I've done for sure.
So I got that going and justrecently, with your dad,

(52:56):
acquired those industrialproperties south of town.
I'm hoping to get more of thosefrom the fountains if they want
to sell them, but I'm not sure.
I've been thinking a lot about,with this tapped, failing, what
?
What do I want to do?
You know, for work, for for thevocation, for the next?

(53:17):
You know, however long I gotyeah.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Is that a midlife crisis?

Speaker 2 (53:21):
yeah you see my corvette, though it's pretty
sick yeah, nice.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Um yeah, anything.
Any stuff at.
Any new things that tapped orum things people should be
looking out for.
Um, yeah, still doing taptakeovers and trivia nights and
yeah, all that, all that, no,nothing new.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Just you know we've got new specials every week.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
Of course that's part of our thing, yeah, instagram,
keep up the Instagram, because.
I love looking, checking to seewhat the rotating burger is.
You know.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
And I get all excited about it before I go over.
It has Instagram, I guess gameimproved in your eyes in the
last few months.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
I would say I have not noticed anything.
Okay, no, all right, I don'tknow how much you're on social
media.
I don't know if that's helpfulor not.
Like I said, I mostly just kindof look for the rotator of the
week and, yeah, check that out,okay.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
That's what gets me excited.
We've yeah, this I mean new forus we brought in a social media
marketing person.
Okay, yeah, I mean new for us.
We brought in a social mediamarketing person and she's done
a lot of stuff, pushing a lotmore content, doing more than
just kind of the pictures.
She's putting reels and stories, I think are the things that
she's doing Unless those are thesame thing, I don't know but

(54:47):
anyway, a lot of content anddifferent kinds of content that
we've been pushing out there.
So that's something that we'vedone, that's new behind the
scenes and I can see that we'regetting a lot more traction on
the social media following andinteractions and impressions and
followings and likes and allthat.
All those terms, yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
But like you said that all those terms yeah, but
like you said, you're a numbersguy.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
So you don't have to.
I'm sure it takes time to seeif that translates.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
It does, and we started that for Lewiston and we
had a massive spike in theamount of social media online
interaction we were getting.
How do you measure how thattranslates into people coming in
?
It's hard.
So one of the things we put inplace here is like okay, you're
going to market this item, let'ssee if the sales spike on that

(55:37):
item.
Oh, there you go.
That would be a good indicationthat, yeah, what you're doing
is having an effect, and for themost part it does.
We've seen that.
So now does that mean morepeople are coming in, or is it
just changing people's patterns,what they happen to wear when
they already come in like Idon't know?

Speaker 1 (55:53):
but yeah, just push those high margin items yeah
exactly awesome.
Well, I think we're like at anhour already, so, oh, wow, okay,
yeah, thanks, joel you'rewelcome.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Thanks for having me tap to Moscow already.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
So oh, wow, okay, yeah, thanks, joel, you're
welcome, tapped Moscow and alsobe excited to watch.
Hopefully that building start.
We'll come down and then go up.
Yeah Right, if you need somebrick.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
You know, let me know .
Or some old, you have a lot ofbrick, really nice pine wood.
Yeah, I mean that whole, thatwhole brick structure is looking
to knock down.
I didn't give away as much as Iwould have hoped last time, but
I'd love to not have to throwit away, just give it to people
to use.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
Yeah, so yeah, cool yeah.
Local brick, I'm sure yeah,which is awesome.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
With 130-year.
You know history in Moscow.
So yeah, it is kind of cool.
Anyway, you can have it forfree if you want it.
Just let me know.
Cool, Thanks, man.
Yeah, thank you, See ya.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Thanks for joining us .
Like, share, subscribe.
We'll see you next week.